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[Christian Knudsen]

Oh, so if we offer to host the games for them, we'll get in trouble...? Of course, if the game maker remains anonymous, who'll ever be able to tell that it was made by a South Korean.

[Melly]

It could be in the Korean language. That'd be a pretty dead giveaway.

[agj]

Oh, so if we offer to host the games for them, we'll get in trouble...?

We don't have to obey the South Korean law. At worst they'd block the website on their end, but come on.

[Christian Knudsen]

It could be in the Korean language. That'd be a pretty dead giveaway.

We could make a bunch of Korean language games, just like the bunch of EDGE games that were made back when. Eh, eh?

[Melly]

agj is right, we wouldn't be personally affected by it.

[Christian Knudsen]

Great. Then I definitely support the idea of having a banner or something on the front page to let South Korean game makers know that they'll be able to distribute their games here. Maybe we could make a small banner or button that other game makers could place on their site with a short message in Korean that tells a game maker to press the button to get in contact with the owner of the site with regards to distributing a game on said site?

EDIT: But if a non-South Korean site can't get in trouble for distributing a South Korean non-rated game, why can't the South Korean game makers just upload their games to file sharing services themselves?

[Melly]

I'm not really sure of the specifics, but I'd imagine south korean game developers would want to distribute their games to other south koreans. Like, if suddenly you weren't allowed to distribute your games to american audiences, I imagine you'd still be pretty upset regardless.

There's also the language barrier. I imagine the vast majority of their games would be in korean, which I believe is a language pretty unique to their country.

And if the rating board decided to block a page here that was distributing their games, they wouldn't even be able to see the feedback they got, if people liked it, and so on.

It's a really shitty situation for them no matter how you slice it.

[kyn]

Buckle up, 'cause a shit-ton of Korean MMO's are coming to tigsource.

[Kinten]

Let's get this on the road. I'll contact the pig-min.com writer (been in touch with him before) and ask if he could translate something for the front page.

Also, as an act of defience, anyone who don't want their name on the game should credit Lee Myung-bak, South Korean president.

EDIT: Done. Now let's hope he's willing to help out.

[Batmanifestdestiny]

Wow, all this talk of hosting Korean games under the noses of the government makes me feel like I'm hiding refugees or something.


But yeah, I think that Korean developers should release their games anyway, but say that it was made by Lee Myung-bak.  That would be great.  Or, they could release it under some large umbrella, like "The South Korean Indie Union" where people would know that it's from Korea, but there would be so many people under that title that it would be impossible to find out who to charge?

[mrkwang]

Hello there. I'm mrkwang from Pig-Min(http://pig-min.com), Korean Indie Game zine. And now does Pig-Min Agency, which supports some Korean Indie team to go abroad, as Arcshock of [Sand Castle - Prelude] & Turtle Cream of [Cut & Paste] [Sugar Cube].

e-mail : [email protected]
MSN messenger : [email protected]

I don't usually visit TIGsource forum, however I got assist e-mail from Pontus "Kinten" Hammarberg at TIGsource forum & wished to write something about that. You might know basic idea from that reddit link already. However I wrote some reply e-mail to Kinten, and copy & paste that here.

---

Thanks for kind e-mail.

Recently some RPG maker community got closed by GRB, we got really shocked & felt shame, and must work something about that.

In fact, we Pig-Min Agency is planing to some Online Performance against GRB(Gaming Rating Board) in Korea, as making "This is NOT rated by GRB, so you can't play." edition with other local developers. I was thinking about write Press Release in English & spread, nothing is made up yet, anyway.

However I'd like to let you know few things about that.

- This is NOT NEW Law.

Basically, Korean Law says "EVERY GAME must be rated" by GRB or somewhere else like that. And EVERY GAME means Online(MMORPG) / Console(PS3 XBOX360) / Downloadable Casual(Popcap Big Fish Games) / Flash Games (Armor Games style) / Web Games (Tribal Wars style) / Freeware games (Student hobby made with RPG Maker) / ... etc. Of course, even if that Law says so, they don't have to be so harsh.

And the most important part is, they can't & don't rate so well!

They announced to rate Flash Game at Jun. 2007. They got blamed at 2008 'inspection of the administration[government offices] conducted by the National Assembly', as only 0.35% (234 games) were rated from 66,727 Flash Games.

We'd like to communicate about this situation, and do some work about that. Please keep in touch.

e-mail : [email protected]
MSN messenger : [email protected]

[increpare]

Thanks very much for your post, mrkwang : )

In fact, we Pig-Min Agency is planing to some Online Performance against GRB(Gaming Rating Board) in Korea, as making "This is NOT rated by GRB, so you can't play." edition with other local developers. I was thinking about write Press Release in English & spread, nothing is made up yet, anyway.

I think you might be able to get some people from other countries to contribute to this as well, if you want.

[PsySal]

I'm on board with this, I'd be willing to host some Korean indie games on my website for sure.

Also: tangential to the current discussion, but I wonder if the Korean indie scene knows about Jordan Magnuson's excellent Freedom Bridge:

http://www.necessarygames.com/my-games/freedom-bridge-windows-free-download-game

[mrkwang]

Thanks very much for your post, mrkwang : )

In fact, we Pig-Min Agency is planing to some Online Performance against GRB(Gaming Rating Board) in Korea, as making "This is NOT rated by GRB, so you can't play." edition with other local developers. I was thinking about write Press Release in English & spread, nothing is made up yet, anyway.

I think you might be able to get some people from other countries to contribute to this as well, if you want.

Thanks for your kind reply. Not sure exactly yet, however I'd make up something.

I'm on board with this, I'd be willing to host some Korean indie games on my website for sure.

Also: tangential to the current discussion, but I wonder if the Korean indie scene knows about Jordan Magnuson's excellent Freedom Bridge:

http://www.necessarygames.com/my-games/freedom-bridge-windows-free-download-game

Never knew that game before, just tried & got something from that, so I tweeted about that in my pigminkorea twitter. Thanks for letting me know.

Oh man that's really bad, Down with this evil government! Tomorrow I'm sending all my money to Kim Jong Il.

Don't send money to him, please.

[Dustin Smith]

I just sent a line to Costik and the Rock Paper Shotgun crew, with any luck we can get the word out and (hopefully) get this amended.